Who Is Supporting the People Who Support Perinatal Families?

By Nallely (Nelly) Willis, Vice President of Programs

The Lindsay Clancy case has put an extraordinary amount of attention on the professionals who care for pregnant and postpartum people.

Throughout the trial, clinicians have taken the stand and had their decisions, assessments, communications, and treatment choices examined in painstaking detail. Outside the courtroom, the public conversation has asked what providers recognized, what they missed, what they should have done differently, and where systems failed. Recent commentary from reproductive and forensic psychiatrists has even raised concerns that the scrutiny surrounding the case could make clinicians more hesitant to treat mothers with serious mental illness.

These are important conversations and we absolutely need to examine how our systems respond to perinatal mental illness and how we can better support parents and families.But there is another question we need to ask: Who is supporting the people doing this work?

This October, GPS Group Peer Support is offering two free online peer support groups specifically for professionals who support pregnant, postpartum, infant, parenting, and caregiving families. We are offering them because this moment is not only affecting the families at the center of these conversations. It may also be deeply affecting the workforce responsible for caring for them.

When the Work Follows You Home

People who work in perinatal and maternal mental health regularly sit alongside families during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

They may support someone through severe anxiety or depression. They may hear about intrusive thoughts, trauma, pregnancy or infant loss, family crisis, or fear. They may need to assess risk, make difficult decisions, coordinate care across systems, and determine what someone needs when the answer is not always clear.

Then they may go home and continue thinking about the person they saw that day.

The Lindsay Clancy trial may intensify those thoughts, questions, and worries. Testimony has focused heavily on the care Clancy received from multiple mental health professionals, including questions about diagnosis, medications, communication among providers, and what clinicians knew at different points in her care.

For professionals watching this unfold, it can be difficult not to imagine themselves in the same position. The emotional impact of that deserves our attention, too.

Providers Are People, Not Just Professionals

Training matters. Clinical supervision matters. Strong protocols, communication, staffing, and systems of care matter.

But professionals are also human beings.

They can feel grief when someone they support is suffering. They can feel helpless when the resources a family needs are not available. They can question themselves after a difficult encounter. They can feel the weight of decisions made within imperfect systems.

And they may not always have somewhere to talk about those feelings.

Healthcare culture can make that particularly difficult. When your role is to be the person who helps, admitting that the work has affected you can feel uncomfortable. There may be an expectation to remain composed, move to the next patient, and keep going.

But being affected by difficult work does not mean someone is less capable of doing it. It means they are human.

We need systems that support providers clinically and professionally. And we also need places where they can process the emotional impact of the work itself.

Peer support can be one of those places.

A peer support group is not clinical supervision, and it is not a substitute for therapy or other mental health care. It offers something different: an opportunity to sit with other people who understand the particular weight of this work and speak honestly without immediately having to solve, diagnose, advise, or fix.

Sometimes hearing another provider say, “I have questioned myself, too,” or “This has stayed with me, too,” can interrupt the isolation that comes with carrying these experiences alone.

Free Support for the Perinatal Workforce This October

In response to this moment, GPS is offering two opportunities for professionals to come together.

Navigating Anxiety, Uncertainty, and Emotional Overload — October 6, 12–1:30 PM ET

This GPS peer support group offers space to process anxiety, uncertainty, and emotional overload related to supporting pregnant, postpartum, infant, and parenting families. In light of the highly publicized Lindsay Clancy trial and the intense attention it has brought to postpartum psychosis, maternal mental health, and systems of care, participants can explore what these conversations may be bringing up personally and professionally.

The Emotional Weight of Caregiving. October 8th, 2-3:30pm ET

A GPS peer support space for professionals who support pregnant, postpartum, infant, parenting, and caregiving families through periods of vulnerability, crisis, loss, trauma, and uncertainty.

All professionals working with or alongside families are welcome, including mental health and behavioral health professionals, social workers, peer support specialists, community health workers, doulas, midwives, nurses, physicians and other healthcare professionals, lactation professionals, home visitors, early childhood and infant mental health professionals, case managers, family support specialists, educators, advocates, program staff, supervisors, leaders, and others whose work involves supporting parents, infants, children, or families.

Against the backdrop of the Lindsay Clancy trial and renewed attention to severe maternal mental illness and the systems responsible for supporting families, participants will have space to explore feelings of grief, fear, helplessness, responsibility, self-questioning, moral distress, or secondary emotional impact—and what it means to carry these experiences as professionals.